Wendy Davis, the Democratic Texas state senator running for governor, reveals in her upcoming memoir the heartbreaking decision she made to terminate a pregnancy due to a fetal brain abnormality, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
Davis wrote that in 1997, she and her then-husband, Jeff Davis, both wanted the baby girl, which they had already named Tate Elise. But after doctors found Tate had an acute brain disorder that would likely cause her to suffer, the Davises decided to terminate the pregnancy.
Davis wrote she could feel the baby “tremble violently, as if someone were applying an electric shock to her” while in the womb.
“She was suffering,” Davis wrote.
The baby’s life was ended and she was delivered by Caesarean section, according to the Express-News’ account of the memoir.
The Davises spent the next day with Tate, having her baptized, crying, and taking photographs.
“An indescribable blackness followed. It was a deep, dark despair and grief, a heavy wave that crushed me, that made me wonder if I would ever surface,” Davis wrote in her memoir. “And when I finally did come through it, I emerged a different person. Changed. Forever changed.”
The Express-News talked to Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, who said he didn’t expect the revelation to lose Davis any votes, and that it might actually help humanize her.
“The group that will be most bothered by her having an abortion of a baby with a severe fetal abnormality is a group that wasn’t going to vote for her anyway,” Jones said.
He added: “The positive side of it for her is it humanizes her, and also makes it a little tricky for opponents to attack her on the abortion issue because now, it not only is a political issue for her, but it’s a personal issue.”
This was the second abortion Davis went through. The first was an ectopic pregnancy, caused when an egg implanted itself outside of her womb. Because of the location, the baby had no chance of survival, and Davis’ own life was at risk — she had to terminate. Even though ectopic pregnancies are discovered early, Davis said she thought she was carrying a boy, which she and her husband called “Baby Lucas.”
Davis’ opponent, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, sympathized with Davis instead of using the disclosure as a political point.
“The unspeakable pain of losing a child is beyond tragic for any parent. As a father, I grieve for the Davis family and for the loss of life,” Abbott told the Express-News.
Davis currently trails Abbott by double digits. Her memoir, Forgetting to Be Afraid, will be released Tuesday.
